Accidents are never far from the news when it comes to the automotive sector, and two recent cases stand out.
In February 2025, Ford and Slater Ltd, a garage in King’s Lynn, was fined £200,000 after one of its mechanics was fatally crushed by a lorry; the mechanic was working underneath a lorry to repair the front-end air suspension and a loss of air pressure caused the vehicle to lower. The HSE investigation found that the company had failed to conduct a proper risk assessment and had not provided the mechanic with the necessary equipment and safeguards to prevent the accident.
And then in June a Liverpool motor vehicle repair company, Car Spa & Tyres Ltd, was fined £40,000 and ordered to pay £20,000 in costs after a car fell from a two-post car vehicle lift onto a worker who was on his break. The HSE found that the firm had failed to put in place a safe system of work or sufficiently trained staff in the safe operation of lifting equipment.
Mark Darvill, managing director of Hillclimb Garage in Buckinghamshire thinks that these incidents are “tragic” but feels that in his experience – for independents at least – health and safety has become more “embedded in the wider business strategy over recent years.”
However, from a legal perspective, Stuart Ponting, a partner in the Regulatory & Compliance team of Walker Morris, states that health and safety legislation “applies to garages in the same way as it does to most duty holders under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.”
He recognises that significant investment in safety has been made and that technology, enhanced training, automated processes and improving safety culture have all played a part in improving the sector's record. That said, Ponting comments that “underlying a large proportion of the accidents in this sector is human error, but what is less clear is whether those errors arise out of poor training and supervision, increasing pressures to complete work in shorter timeframes, poor safety cultures or individual employee violations - corner cutting.”
Mark Field, chief executive of the IAAF, also refers to the law, observing that while it’s not onerous, some “focus too much on legislation, and not enough on the need for ongoing training and development and supervision.”
Nevertheless, it bothers Ponting that accidents do still occur and that “other sectors, where the risks might be perceived as more significant, appear to have much lower accident rates.”
It should be no surprise when Field says that the HSE has found a higher-than-average fatality rate in the motor vehicle repair industry, with 21 worker deaths in the five years to March 2022, 13 of which were caused by work under a poorly supported vehicle. He puts this in context: “In Great Britain 124 workers were killed in work-related accidents in 2024/25 across all industries and that key causes of accidents in the [automotive] sector include being trapped under inadequately supported vehicles, slips, trips, and falls, manual handling injuries and being struck by a vehicle.”
As part of its drive to reduce the risk of injuries the HSE does run targeted programmes, the latest of which was announced late September and will involve 1000 targeted inspections of motor vehicle repair businesses to tackle occupational asthma, especially amongst paint sprayers.
This aside, for Ponting the problem is one of size - that “larger garages invest more in the training and equipment provided to employees - but this isn't a complete panacea.”
He thinks that it doesn’t help that “there is far less proactive enforcement than there has been in the past. Prosecutions are at almost record lows and these only seem to occur after protracted delays contributed to by the challenges within the criminal justice system.”
The solution to Field is clear: a cultural shift where “employees think of not only themselves, but everybody’s health and safety; the change could and indeed should come from within the business and it’s about supervision”. He says that the IAAF is working with an industry specialist, Table Manners, “to support its garage members with a greater understanding of health and safety.”
And Darvill agrees, saying too that education and improving standards is vital and that he “welcomes new and practical initiatives and guidelines that further improve and safeguard the safety and wellbeing of our people.”
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